Chocolate can burn, which would ruin an otherwise impeccable sauce. Make sure to stir all the way down to the bottom of the pan after adding the chocolate and cocoa. This is part of BA's Best, a collection of our essential recipes.

Remove from heat and remove thermometer from saucepan. Add chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring and scraping down sides and bottom of saucepan with a heatproof rubber spatula to prevent scorching, until thickened and bubbling rapidly, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt until smooth.

Strain sauce through a fine-mesh sieve into a heatproof bowl—it will look oily and separated at this point, but don’t worry! Vigorously whisk 2 Tbsp. water into sauce to emulsify it; whisk until smooth and glossy. Whisk in more water a tablespoonful at a time until sauce is pourable but still thick.

Do Ahead: Hot fudge can be made 2 weeks ahead. Cover and chill. Before serving, gently warm in microwave, stirring every 20 seconds, or in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, adding water to thin if needed.

Reviews

Claire! I feel like I’ve let you down! I followed this recipe exactly as written with one exception. I accidentally purchased light agave instead of dark. I’m not sure if that is where I went horribly wrong with this recipe, but it was an unmitigated disaster. I cooked the cream mixture to 220, I even used two different candy thermometers because I didn’t trust one of them. Then added the chocolate and cooked that a bit longer. Added the cocoa and the vanilla and, yes, it looked oily and separated at this point. Then I put it into the fine mesh sieve and a bunch of liquid fell through, but the chocolate mixture was so thick that I had to really force it through with a spoon. Then I tried whisking in the water, and while perhaps a bit of emulsification occurred, the mixture was really disgusting looking, and tasted terrible. The only thing I can think is that I managed to burn the chocolate, but if that’s the case then I really believe their must be some mistake in the way the recipe is written. I don’t know....was this all a result of using light instead of dark agave nectar?